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The Union General de Trabajadores (UGT, Workers General Union) was and remains a major Spanish Socialist trade union, affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE). It was the second largest labour union in Spain in 1936 with a million and a half members, and was the most moderate of the key political groups on the Republican side, though giving the feelings running high in Spain in 1936, that isnt saying much.

Francisco Largo Caballero, a UGT boss and long active in left wing politics, was designated Prime Minister of the Republic on September 4, 1936. He was an old foe of the anarchists, who had been his main rival for the best part of a decade, and as the man in charge of the Republican war effort was determined to return centralised government control over the vital heavy industry in the anarchist heartland of Catalonia. Turning to the PCE for aid, he eventually succeeded, but the resultant communist engineered crisis ended up with Caballero resigning and the PCE becoming the real power in the Republic.